Dari subtitling services

Because the format cannot carry what a right-to-left language needs. Netflix, for one, does not accept EBU STL for right-to-left languages and asks for TTML instead. STL is a binary broadcast file with a code table in its header and no slot for a direction instruction, so the reading order has to be reconstructed at the far end by software that may not agree with yours. We deliver timed text that states it.

Explicitly, in one of three accepted places: writingMode on the region, tts:direction on each paragraph or span, or tts:direction in a style that every event references. The common thread is that it applies to every subtitle event, not once at the top of the document. We pick the method your platform's spec names and keep it consistent through the file.

Worth deciding at the brief, because it applies to the whole file. Dari uses the extended Arabic-Indic digits at U+06F0 to U+06F9, which are not the Arabic-Indic set used across most of the Arab world and are not Latin figures either. Broadcast and public-information work usually wants the Persian forms; technical material often keeps Latin digits to match on-screen graphics.

They are standard forms of one language and an Afghan audience will follow an Iranian file, but they are not one commission. Vocabulary, idiom and the register a broadcaster expects all differ, and viewers hear it immediately. We cast an Afghan subtitler for Afghanistan, and where a project has to reach both countries we quote the two versions separately.

Dari subtitling is quoted by the minute of video, from £20. The drivers are running time, whether the Dari audio needs transcribing first, whether you want SDH or a burnt-in master, and how many formats leave with the job. The right-to-left delivery checks are part of the work rather than a line item on top. Quotes are per project, and our Price Match Promise stands behind them.

Yes, and a good share of our Dari work is exactly that. Afghan-language footage gets a same-language caption file, SDH included, in a format that carries the direction properly so it behaves the same on every platform you publish to. Accessibility teams and muted social feeds both need this version, and it sits alongside translated subtitles rather than replacing them.

Send it across. We cue it to picture, condense any line that would overrun, and convert it into whatever your platform actually accepts for right-to-left delivery — an SRT carries no direction information at all, so it is often the point where an inherited file starts behaving differently from one player to the next. Where no transcript exists, we transcribe the Dari audio first.

Yes. We deliver SRT, VTT, STL and TTML into Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and the major online editors, and we tell you which of them is the safe one to hand on for right-to-left delivery. Where an edit suite is the last stop before publication, burnt-in MP4 or MOV removes the question altogether.

Less than people expect: the video, or a link to it, its running time, which platform or broadcaster it is going to, and the date you need it by. A rough cut is fine — we would rather quote on what exists than wait for picture lock and lose a week of your schedule. A named project manager comes back with an itemised quote, normally within four working hours.

More than half of enquiries get a reply within thirty minutes during office hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm UK time), and the itemised quote normally follows within four working hours. After that you have one dedicated project manager who owns the job from brief to final file — not a ticket queue, and not a different name on every email. If it is easier, call +44 207 095 5730 and ask for them by name.

Yes, and it is one of the commonest reasons people get in touch. Tell us it is for a pitch and you get a figure you can put in front of your own client, itemised so it stands up to being picked apart, with no obligation and no follow-up sales calls if the pitch goes elsewhere. If it lands, the quote still holds and we already know the project.

Send it over. Our Price Match Promise covers like-for-like work, and because our quotes are itemised you can see exactly what is being compared — which is usually where the gap turns out to be, in a revision pass, a licence or a delivery format that the cheaper figure quietly left out. If it really is the same work for less, we match it.